17 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(01/26/07 5:00am)
Green Day was a completely different band before American Idiot. Before being signed to major label Warner Bros., the trio released two albums on Bay Area independent label Lookout!. The first was a compilation of various EPs titled 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, while the latter, Kerplunk!, featured what would become the definitive lineup of Billie Joe Armstrong on guitar and vocals, Mike Dirnt on bass and Tre Cool on drums. Both albums are being reissued through Warner Bros.\nKerplunk! came out in 1992 when three-chord power punk was in its prime. Green Day led the way and dominated over other bands of this caliber, landing them a major label record deal and casting them into the spotlight as one of the most popular punk bands of the '90s. Kerplunk! is a more melodic, rougher album than any of their later offerings.\nSongs like "2,000 Light Years Away" showcase the energy and emotion these guys have (this song being about the girl Billie Joe would eventually marry). Every track is a standout, but few would become hits. "Welcome to Paradise" is a familiar effort, being redone on 1994's epic, Dookie. \nCatchy, hook-laden songs abound on Kerplunk! Songs like "80" and "Sweet Children" are solid examples of Billie Joe's signature voice and the excellent cohesion between the three guys. "Dominated Love Slave" is a hilarious off-kilter attempt at country, sung by Tre Cool. The guys even take a well-received stab at The Who's "My Generation." Plus, the album cover is great (the hand-drawn artwork that many Lookout! releases would feature).\nThis version, however, has little more to offer than the original. The songs have been re-mastered and sound a little bit fresher, but this sort of takes away from the raw and passionate feel that Lookout! bands in the early '90s are known for. There aren't any added tracks, so if you already own this amazing album (which you already should, it came out an astonishing 15 years ago!), then there's no incentive to buy this. \nSadly, many Green Day fans only know them because of American Idiot, the rock opera Green Day -- the every-song-on-the-album-is-on-the-bloody-radio Green Day. Kerplunk! is for the true Green Day fans. These guys were only 17 when they recorded this, and the results are pretty amazing. As for the reissue, bottom line: If you already have Kerplunk!, then there's no damn reason why you should get this. Warner Bros. is just trying to make more money. Get the Lookout! version if you can find it.
(01/26/07 1:26am)
Green Day was a completely different band before American Idiot. Before being signed to major label Warner Bros., the trio released two albums on Bay Area independent label Lookout!. The first was a compilation of various EPs titled 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, while the latter, Kerplunk!, featured what would become the definitive lineup of Billie Joe Armstrong on guitar and vocals, Mike Dirnt on bass and Tre Cool on drums. Both albums are being reissued through Warner Bros.\nKerplunk! came out in 1992 when three-chord power punk was in its prime. Green Day led the way and dominated over other bands of this caliber, landing them a major label record deal and casting them into the spotlight as one of the most popular punk bands of the '90s. Kerplunk! is a more melodic, rougher album than any of their later offerings.\nSongs like "2,000 Light Years Away" showcase the energy and emotion these guys have (this song being about the girl Billie Joe would eventually marry). Every track is a standout, but few would become hits. "Welcome to Paradise" is a familiar effort, being redone on 1994's epic, Dookie. \nCatchy, hook-laden songs abound on Kerplunk! Songs like "80" and "Sweet Children" are solid examples of Billie Joe's signature voice and the excellent cohesion between the three guys. "Dominated Love Slave" is a hilarious off-kilter attempt at country, sung by Tre Cool. The guys even take a well-received stab at The Who's "My Generation." Plus, the album cover is great (the hand-drawn artwork that many Lookout! releases would feature).\nThis version, however, has little more to offer than the original. The songs have been re-mastered and sound a little bit fresher, but this sort of takes away from the raw and passionate feel that Lookout! bands in the early '90s are known for. There aren't any added tracks, so if you already own this amazing album (which you already should, it came out an astonishing 15 years ago!), then there's no incentive to buy this. \nSadly, many Green Day fans only know them because of American Idiot, the rock opera Green Day -- the every-song-on-the-album-is-on-the-bloody-radio Green Day. Kerplunk! is for the true Green Day fans. These guys were only 17 when they recorded this, and the results are pretty amazing. As for the reissue, bottom line: If you already have Kerplunk!, then there's no damn reason why you should get this. Warner Bros. is just trying to make more money. Get the Lookout! version if you can find it.
(08/05/02 1:27am)
Mimi Zweig knows that some great musicians are born and not made.\nViolinist and IU graduate Joshua Bell is one of these.\n"His music making is something that comes from within him, and I doubt this can be taught ... just nurtured," Zweig said.\nZweig, a professor of violin at the IU School of Music, nurtured the world-renowned Bell for six years while he was a student. Now 33, Bell, a Bloomington native, can add three Grammy awards to his list of accomplishments.\nBell performed on three recordings that received Grammys at this year's award ceremony in Los Angeles. "West Side Story Suite" was named the Best Engineered Classical Album; Bela Fleck's "Perpetual Motion" (on which Bell appeared as a guest) won Best Classical Crossover Album; and a selection Bell performed on Debussy's "Children\'s Corner" took the award for Best Instrumental Arrangement.\n"He is a marvelous violinist," Zweig said. She said his total dedication to everything he plays as one reason for his success.\n"He is able to become completely fascinated with what he is doing, which enables him to focus his concentration, and we hear the results of that," she said.\nNow living in New York City, Bell made his professional debut at age 14, playing with conductor Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Since then, he has gone on to a high-profile career in classical music, sharing the stage with virtually all of the world's leading orchestras. \nIn 2001, Bell won a Grammy for his recording of Nicholas Maw's "Violin Concerto," a work written especially for him. He was also the solo violinist on John Corigliano's Oscar-winning soundtrack for "The Red Violin."\nBell's newest release, for the Sony Classical label, is a treatment of the ever-popular Beethoven and Mendelssohn violin concertos. The novel feature in this recording, however, is that the violinist composed his own cadenzas for both works, a departure from long-standing tradition.\nHis desire to break new ground led him to record the suite from Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story," bridging the gap between music, theater and the mainstream classical audience. Orchestrator William D. Brohn arranged the suite, and on the same album Bell was also reunited with Corigliano, who wrote an arrangement of Bernstein's "Make Our Garden Grow." The violinist has admired Bernstein's work for some time. \n"The ('West Side Story') tunes are incredible, so memorable and so beautiful, that they have really worked their way into the consciousness of most Americans, even into Gap ads," Bell said on his Web site. "'West Side Story' is the best of both worlds, classical and pop. It succeeds on every level, and so well that it seems almost wrong to classify it simply as a musical."\nBell is also convinced of Bernstein's role in building musical bridges during his lifetime.\n"To be able to write something like 'West Side Story' and then be respected by the Vienna Philharmonic -- he did a lot to help raise the profile of Americans in classical music," Bell said on his Web site.\nJane Covner, press representative for JAG Entertainment, which represents Bell, points out that the young violinist has already earned a fair amount of respect not only from the classical music world, but mainstream media as well.\n"Programs such as the Grammys and other shows which Josh has appeared on such as 'The Other Half,' 'Charlie Rose,' 'Conan O\'Brien,' 'Judith Regan,' 'Nightline,' 'CBS This Morning,' 'Access Hollywood' and many others feature Joshua for the same reason they feature other guests," she said. "His outstanding talent, and consensus that he is, as stated by Elle Magazine in June of 2001, 'the most renowned American-born violinist of the modern era."
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The concert given by the Mendelssohn String Quartet Tuesday night at Auer Hall offered a fine chance to see a professional chamber group in action. The concert was one of many offered to the public during IU's 2002 Summer Music Festival, which runs through August. \nThe Mendelssohn Quartet, the first ensemble on the festival's calendar, hinted that it should be an exciting season. They opened the nearly two-hour long concert with Beethoven's youthful first quartet, Op.18 No. 1. The composer's popular early quartets bridged the gap between classical tradition and the drama of romanticism. Even this work, written by such a young man, showed signs of the revolutionary Beethoven would become. The players infused their performance with a sense of urgency and daring that made surprises such as the grand pauses in the adagio movement sound new again. \nThis is hard to do in the CD age, in which this music is heard so often that it's easy to take the masters for granted. This group, to its credit, made it sound as if they were exploring uncharted territory, and the audience responded enthusiastically. Ironically, the second piece on the program, "Ainsi la nuit" ("And then the night") by French composer Henri Dutilleux, came off far more predictably than the Beethoven piece, even though it's close to 200 years newer. I'm usually an admirer of Dutilleux's music, but aside from some spectacular colorful effects that he is known for, the piece did little to distinguish itself.\nCellist Marcy Rosen explained to the audience that the work was supposed to conjure up celestial images in the mind of the listener, but the group's oddly shapeless and dynamic-starved performance failed to get the earthbound performance off the ground. Most likely at fault was the artistic climate during which "Ainsi la nuit" was written (1976), a time when once-fashionable serial music was at its most redundant.\nThe concert ended with one of Beethoven's last works, the Quartet in A Minor, Op.132. What makes this piece so remarkable is that it was written when the composer's rising star had long since descended into a life plagued by illness, deafness and despair. Yet this quartet contains some of the most luminous music ever written and some of the most innovative as well. Keys shift abruptly, traditional rules of voice-leading are broken, and some shimmering phrases played over a drone in the second movement sound like an anticipation of minimalism by some 150 years. \nSome shaky intonation soured parts of the ethereal slow movement, which is particularly unforgiving because of Beethoven's unusually exposed part writing. But the ensemble playing was mostly tight and the musicians were responsive to each other. They did a fine job of highlighting the unique features of Beethoven's forward-looking music.\nThe flaws in the last piece seemed to show the group's fatigue after playing such a long concert of demanding music. Overall, the strength of the evening was in its imaginative programming. Featuring a modern work between the quartets that bookended Beethoven's life put their visionary qualities in perspective.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Nothing spells summer quite like a setting sun, a warm breeze, cool jazz and neo-primitivist art.\nSound strange? Henri Matisse, the early 20th-century French painter, wouldn't have thought so.\nA collection of art works by Matisse, who was a fan of jazz, will be on special display until Aug. 4 at the IU Art Museum. The installation is being shown in conjunction with a series of jazz concerts, which are held outdoors on the museum's Sculpture Terrace every Friday night through July 26.\nThe concerts, featuring both local and national talent, begin at 6:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public. The Matisse exhibit includes his series of works entitled "Jazz," which were inspired by the textural and spatial elements of music. The artist himself referred to the work as a set of "chromatic and spatial improvisations," according to Joanna Davis, public relations assistant for the museum.\n"He always likened his artwork to musical compositions," Davis said. "This was especially true when his eyesight failed him in later years, and he turned to the cutout technique to create his art." \nA different work from the "Jazz" collection will be on display each weekend.\nNow in its twelfth year, the art and music series, which the museum calls "Jazz in July," originated as a way to present more of its permanent collection to the public. "We have over 35,000 pieces in the collection, and quite a bit of that material has not been on display, or it may have been out only once," Davis said. "We really have a wealth of things that connect with jazz. The series was so popular when it began 12 years ago that we've kept it going since."\nPart of the attraction, no doubt, is the al fresco atmosphere of the concerts. "The Sculpture Terrace is a great place for those, with the fresh air and the outdoor artworks all around," Davis said.\nThe concert series, which featured Indianapolis guitarist Charlie Smith on July 5 and Columbus, Ohio-based fusion group Charged Particles on July 12, also has the Bill Lancton Quartet on the calendar for July 19 and Bloomington musician Sara Caswell on July 26. According to the museum's press release, Lancton has over 30 years of experience playing jazz, rock funk and country music, and award-winning jazz violinist Caswell recently performed at Carnegie Hall alongside the New York Pops All-Stars.\n"To have someone who has played in Carnegie Hall is so exciting," Davis said. "Of course, Bloomington is so full of fine musicians that we could probably have a different performer here every week for years. We're also lucky to have a community that supports art and music so strongly. I think people look forward to and expect the series every year."\nCharged Particles drummer Jon Krosnick is happy to be part of the series. While "Jazz in July" is celebrating 12 years of music, his group is celebrating 11 together. "If you know the jazz world, you know it's hard to be around for that long," he said. "We also have a new CD out, and we enjoy the chance to play the new material for people."\nJazz fan Warren Hartzog, who attended the concert with his daughter Chelsea, heard about it while touring the museum. A resident of York, Penn., he was in town for the week with his daughter and wife, who is a doctoral student at Waldon University. "We've been here six days, and have seen just about every musical event in Bloomington during that time," he said. His daughter is taking violin lessons, and while he is not a musician, Hartzog professed to being an avid listener. "I love going to hear live jazz," he said. "It's been a very good week for that"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
It is always exciting to see a talented young musician grow into a major player on the tough classical music scene. Even more of a thrill is to know that you were there in the beginning and helped his or her career move from the practice rooms of a university into the world's most famous concert halls. \nPaul Biss and Karen Taylor, both professors of piano at IU, and Tim Northcutt, media relations manager for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO), are three people who know what that feels like. All played a part in the meteoric rise of 22-year-old piano virtuoso Jonathan Biss to the upper echelons of classical music. \nBiss, who was born in Bloomington and studied at IU for six years, will return to Indiana Friday and Saturday night to perform Mendelssohn's First Piano Concerto with the ISO and guest conductor Stefan Sanderling. The concert is part of the orchestra's Marsh "Symphony on the Prairie" series and will take place at the Conner Prairie Amphitheater in Fishers at 7:30 p.m. \nJonathan has received numerous accolades for his playing, including the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1999, and the list of musicians he has collaborated with reads like a "Hot List" of world-renowned talent. Isaac Stern, Andreas Schiff, Pinchas Zukerman, Midori and the Emerson Quartet are just a few who have made it onto the list. His father, Paul, is another (along with Jonathan's mother, IU violin professor Miriam Fried), and he feels lucky to be there.\n"There's absolutely no difference between playing with Jonathan and playing with any number of other seasoned veterans," Biss said. "One may think we're doing him a favor or something, but it's almost just the opposite. Sometimes I feel like he's doing us a favor."\nJonathan has a long-standing association with the ISO, having debuted with them in May 1994 on a Family Series concert after winning the orchestra's Michael Ben and Illene Komisarow Maurer Young Musician's Contest. Making his upcoming performance feel even more like a homecoming is the fact that he played the same Mendelssohn concerto at that first concert. \nHe performed again with the ISO at an Indiana Series concert in May 1996, and since then has appeared as a soloist with the best orchestras across the country; winning Wolf Trap's Shouse Debut Artist Award in 1997 and the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award in 2001. This year he is concluding a two-year stint with the Chamber Music Society Two, the prestigious young artist program sponsored by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. \nAll of which comes as absolutely no surprise to Paul Biss. \n"Whenever people talk about Jonathan, one thing that consistently comes up is maturity. Everybody feels that he has an incredible amount of maturity and sophistication that goes far beyond his years," Biss said. "There's honestly a depth and profoundness to his playing that belies his age."\nIU professor of piano Karen Taylor, who was Jonathan's first teacher when he was just 6 years old, concurs.\n"He had a remarkable musical sensitivity and very deep intuitions even as a small boy," said Taylor, recalling those early lessons. "He was playing music by difficult composers like Schumann and Chopin, for example … the Chopin Mazurkas at age 8 or 9. There are certain things you can't really teach a student, such as rubato, but Jonathan had a wonderful instinct for it."\nWhile it might have been expected that, being born into such a musical environment, Jonathan would pursue music as a career, it wasn't a given. It was his own discipline and dedication to his art that was the deciding factor.\n"Initially, we had no strong desire or hopes that he would make a career of it," his father said. "Of course, music is part and parcel in our house, so it was natural for him to study some kind of instrument. After he started and showed considerable promise, we encouraged him as much as possible, but he was the one who, by age 13 or 14, decided to go with it as a career. \n"He's always been motivated by the music more than anything, even more than the piano. He was tremendously serious about studying music."\nNorthcutt recalls Jonathan's first performance with the ISO fondly and, like so many others, has nothing but the highest praise for the young pianist.\n"Everybody in the industry is buzzing about him," Northcutt said. "He first appeared with us on our outdoor series, but the (Young Musician's) Contest he won in 1994 goes back about 50 years. A lot of winners from that contest, besides Jonathan, have gone on to become prominent musicians"
(06/27/02 2:06am)
For years, people who enjoy artists and crafts have known that Brown County deserves the title "The Art Colony of the Midwest." And each year, for one weekend in June, the public has a chance to see for themselves.\nThe fourth annual Brown County Studio and Garden Tour will take place this Saturday and Sunday in the workshops of 14 local artists. The free, self-guided tour aims to showcase the artists in action.\n"We actually have to be demonstrating for two-hour periods at a time," Dick Hartung, a watercolor landscape painter, said. "People get to see what we do, and it's fun to have a little interplay with the public."\nHartung, a licensed architect, has been painting for nearly 50 of his 65 years. He was required to take six semesters of art classes for his major in college and became hooked. He feels that the atmosphere in Brown County is a nurturing one in which to work. \n"I know that I'm in a great artistic community," he said. "I feel elated to be among such a fine group of people."\nIt seems that every artist you talk to has a common reason for choosing to work here -- the pristine natural surroundings. Floral pottery artist Cheri Platter is one of them.\n"I call my studio Faerie Hollow because of all the fireflies in the woods. In fact, a lot of the early artists who settled in this area liked to call it Fairyland. It's the natural beauty that makes it an ideal place for us to work," she said.\nJane Graber, who crafts early American styled miniatures, agrees.\n"When you're surrounded by lakes, trees, and hills, it inspires the artist in everyone," she said. Graber started her career as a potter at a museum in Ohio, and grew to love the early American historical period, which she incorporates into her work. Her first miniatures were made as souvenir gifts for the children that visited the museum. \nWhile linking art with gardening may seem a bit of a stretch, many of the artists have grown beautiful gardens which will also be on display during the tour.\n"Gardens are an ever-changing tapestry of form, texture, and colors," Graber said. "They definitely play into my ideas about aesthetic beauty."\nNow in its fourth year, the town has enjoyed a fair amount of success, attracting art and nature lovers from Bloomington and the surrounding communities. Co-founder Janet Spears says that the idea was to draw attention to the county's pool of talent.\n"We began to realize how many artists had studios outlying Brown County, and we thought people should know about it," she said. "We crossed our fingers, hoping people would come out, and they did."\n"One of the many reasons we've been successful is that we have a very open, accepting community. If an artist carves out a niche for themselves, whatever it is, people appreciate it."\nThe Brown County Studio and Garden tour is free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 29 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 30. Artists will have goods for sale at their homes. Maps are available at T.C. Steele State Historic Site, Brown County Inn and Restaurant, and Story Inn Bed and Breakfast and Restaurant.
(05/13/02 4:46am)
One has been called a tireless champion of America's musical legacy, largely responsible for its preservation. The other considered a world ambassador of classical music, having shared the stage with the greatest orchestras and conductors of the last century. \nBoth are professors at IU and provide part of the reason its School of Music consistently ranks among the top three training grounds for musicians in this country. And both have recently been honored for their contributions to the arts, awards that are additions to the long lists of accolades they have accumulated over the years. \nProfessors of music David N. Baker and Menahem Pressler were recently honored by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Society of Arts and Letters, respectively. Baker received the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal on April 26 in recognition of his 15 years of service to the institution. Pressler will receive the NSAL's Lifetime Achievement Award during their convention on May 18. \n"We have outstanding faculty members at the School of Music, and it's always an honor when their achievements are recognized by such prestigious organizations," IU School of Music media liaison, Laura Baich, said.\nBaker, a cellist and chair of the jazz studies department at IU, is also the artistic and musical director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. The ensemble was co-founded by Baker to provide a vehicle for the re-creation of classic music by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Carter and others. \nHe saw the jazz being performed by high school and college students was a far cry from the music he grew up playing under the guidance of the legends whose photos now grace his studio walls: "J.J.," "Q," and "Diz," known to the rest of the world as maestros Johnson, Jones and Gillespie. He oversaw the publication of the Jazz Masterworks Editions by the Smithsonian, painstakingly reconstructing arrangements of classic works from the early years of jazz. \n"When I went to adjudicate festivals, the kids were playing rock pieces, pieces that were ill-written, pieces that I thought had very little educational value," Baker said. "They were doing nothing to perpetuate music that was on such a firm foundation; for example, the music of the swing era. So we started to put together what we thought were pieces that would fill the vacuum."\nThe Masterworks Orchestra grew out of that publishing project and gave listeners a chance to hear orchestrations as they would have been played by Ellington or Basie. It was during the band's most recent concert, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, that Baker was awarded the medal, which came as a surprise to him. \n"The first I heard of it was while we were rehearsing a few days before the concert, and I waked into the office and picked up a program. I said 'What is this?'" he said, his face replicating the wide-eyed shock that was his first reaction. \nThe institute bestows the award upon those who, according to a press release, "have made distinguished contributions to areas of interest to the Smithsonian." It went on to call Baker "a true musical renaissance man" whose example "inspires a global embrace of this rich musical art form." The self-effacing cellist, who is the author of a staggering 2000 compositions, 70 books and 400 articles, is quick to give credit to those mentors who have guided him. \n"J.J. Johnson, Dizzy, George Russell...they are the people who gave me the groundwork on which I build. Everybody with whom I've come into contact has so been gracious and giving to me."\nPianist and co-founder of the Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a four-time Grammy nominee, and the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from one of classical music's most recognizable publications, Gramophone Magazine. The German-born Pressler is gracious yet very pleased with his recognition. \n"We all, especially performers, long to be recognized, loved, you might say," Pressler said speaking softly and choosing his words carefully. "So if you are recognized, and it often comes rather late in life, it causes you to stop, look at your surroundings, and look at yourself. And sometimes you feel quite blessed that you have been able to do the things you do." \n"Of course it gives me great pleasure, but it is greater to know that my family and my friends are pleased," he smiled. "Because they always knew that I was here." \nDespite the fact he has earned numerous honors on his own and with the Beaux Arts Trio, and has appeared as a soloist with such luminary conductors as Loscanini and Szell, Pressler has no plans to rest on his laurels. \n"There is no such thing as a lifetime achievement award," he laughed. "The only time that award can be made is when they put you in the grave and you have done all that can be done. I have always worked very, very hard and I still work very, very hard. I've never given a thought to working less."\nWhile Pressler himself has earned a reputation for bringing excellence out of his students, he is also known to be nurturing and kind. \n"Teaching gives me the greatest satisfaction," he said. "I become the musical parent of all my students while they are here"
(05/13/02 3:12am)
The new play that opened at the Bloomington Playwrights Project this weekend, "Afterdark" by New Yorker Kara Manning, is supposed to examine the personal lives and relationships of seven city dwellers trying to make sense of their world, post-Sept. 11. It does successfully raise some important questions and offer flashes of occasional insight, but just how many questions and what they may be is not always clear. For every truth eloquently illuminated, there seems to be two other threads left untied.\nThe drama is set in New York City, December 2001, barely three months after the terrorist attacks upended the lives Manning examines. Adding to the already bitter sense of disillusionment felt by these characters, the action unfolds just days after the death of rock icon George Harrison. How we react to death and to all profound change is a central issue dealt within "Afterdark."\nJules, played with a fine amount of streetwise grit by IU senior Amanda Nesbitt, is a 16-year old cynic whose passions include stealing cars and her love for Sam, a young jazz drummer who is dying of a long illness (presumably cancer, which claimed Harrison's life as well). One of the stylish things about "Afterdark" is Manning's keen awareness of pop culture, which surfaces when Jules includes among those passions her favorite bands, Yo La Tengo and the White Stripes. These kinds of references could quickly date a play if the writer is not careful, but Manning is. They put a current, realistic edge on the story while being so unobtrusive that they're nearly invisible. Of course, it\'s also pointless to talk about dating a work based on Sept. 11.\nSam (Tim Ryder) approaches dying with the (literal) spiritual guidance of his idol, legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, who in the afterlife has gained a certain mellow wisdom but apparently retained his notoriously salty demeanor. Nick Simpson, a senior music and theater major at IU, played this part skillfully with the necessary cool detachment that made him come off like a foul-mouthed, hipster Jiminy Cricket, which was brilliant. Ryder played equally well off him in his moving and sympathetic portrayal of Sam. \nMaria Dahman, in her role as Jules's mother Jessie, was entrusted with the most poetic language of the script, which was at times beautifully elegant. It worked well against her lot in life as a coffee shop owner and overworked single mother, creating the impression of unfulfilled ambition. More jarring though is Jules's estranged father, Harry, who is supposed to be believable as a Seattle food critic but whose character is far too unrefined. As Harry, Kevin Woodruff made a valiant attempt with what was given to him. \nRounding out the ensemble were two peripheral characters, Diana (Renee Reed), a DJ who acted as a kind of omniscient narrator but whose part in the drama was never made clear, and Abby (Amamda Scherle), a frustrated writer and friend of Jessie. Scherle did double duty by also playing a tourist from Omaha who visits Ground Zero, camera in hand, oblivious to the real human suffering that has taken place there. Manning makes her point loud and clear, but overdoes it in a way that makes the tourist look like a cheap cartoon. Most of the play is similarly malnourished in subtlety. Nick Simpson also doubles as Derek, Jessie's new love interest, who is as uptight and straight-laced as Harry is laissez-faire. He is a well-meaning, sympathetic character that is also, unfortunately, mostly two-dimensional. \nThe main personal interest in "Afterdark" is generated by the two relationships that center around Jules: those with her deadbeat father and her doomed lover. That such a young girl should have to cope with the fear of terrorism as well as the overwhelming realities of teenage life is a central issue of the play; as well as the media spectacle made of death and how a father tries to reconnect with a past that now rejects him. \nWith so many lines of thought being woven simultaneously, they're bound to get tangled, and they do. The coherence of the play suffers from the grand scale of Manning's vision, and as a result the impact of Sept. 11 is lessened. The interpersonal issues the characters face could, for the most part, have happened as readily before 2001 as after, but on the other hand, this also shows the play's universal potential. The parallel of Sam's death with George Harrison's is wonderfully conceived, as the audience is at once shown the public spectacle following Harrison's death and the personal tragedy of Sam's lengthy bout with terminal illness. It is in questioning our shallow understanding of grief that "Afterdark" leaves the most powerful and poignant impression.
(03/01/01 4:58am)
Jazz guitarist John Abercrombie's set Tuesday night at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre was not for the faint of heart or even the casual jazz fan. \nThe burly Abercrombie, sporting a long mustache that drooped to his chin, displayed a tranquil stage presence that belied his rough exterior. While not appearing to break a sweat, he was able to coax liquid-smooth tones and wrestle searing bursts of distortion from the guitar with equal ease, liberally spiking his melodic lines with tangy atonal coloring.\nIn the midst of a 10-date tour of the Midwest to promote his ECM release, Open Land, the 56-year-old guitarist satisfied the receptive audience with a generous helping of material from that album. He began his set with the title cut, which gave all four band members room to stretch their soloistic chops. Abercrombie was supported by violinist Mark Feldman, organist Dan Wall and drummer Adam Nussbaum.\nThey are seasoned veterans and comprise a tight, sensitive ensemble, particularly on the lovely waltz "A Nice Idea." The song's unpredictable, extended harmonies seemed a perfect match for Wall's spare, delicate Hammond organ sound. The absence of a bass player lent the group a refreshingly open sonic canvas. \nMost of the music was harmonically adventurous and defied even the most complex standards set by the kind of radio-friendly jazz known to a wide public. Those in attendance were most likely familiar with Abercrombie's boundary-crossing and envelope-pushing work since the 1970s, with visionaries such as Gil Evans and Billy Cobham. Nowhere was his eclecticism better shown than in a new song titled "That's For Sure." \nThe tune, described by Abercrombie as "a little oddball … country jam session" is a twisting, style-changing tour-de-force for the group. Using mixed meters, it alternated between a western lope and fiery swing, tethered together by his nimble guitar. Although Nussbaum's muscular drumming overpowered at times, all soloists were impressive.\nOpening band Freesome, a guitar, bass and drums trio, played a 30-minute set highlighted by a beautiful rendition of Jimmy Webb's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." Frequent style changes and dramatic use of silence characterized the local group's wide-ranging music, which was well received.
(02/27/01 3:50am)
It's easy to think of such a musical innovator as John Abercrombie in the role of the iconoclast, breaking rules with radical abandon. While it is true that he sometimes does (he was one of the first jazz guitarists to use rock sounds and techniques), he also sees himself as a torchbearer. \n"Carrying the tradition of jazz guitar from Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt to the present day is a very important aspect of my music," Abercrombie said in a press release. Keeping sight of the guitar's history while pushing the envelope in his own compositions has always been a priority for Abercrombie, as shown by his innovative recordings.\nJazz aficionados in Bloomington will get a chance to hear this unique blend of old and new when the John Abercrombie Quartet plays tonight at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. with opening band Freesome.\nThe 56-year-old guitarist came on the international scene in the early 1970s as a member of such seminal groups as the Gil Evans band and Billy Cobham's Mahavishnu Orchestra. With Cobham's ensemble, Abercrombie opened for rock groups such as the Doobie Brothers in arenas many times the size of the small urban clubs in which he started his career.\n"One night we appeared at the Spectrum in Philadelphia," he said. "I thought, 'What am I doing here?'"\nA few years later, Abercrombie began his association with ECM Records, the German-based company known for its distinctive musical amalgam of acoustic and electric jazz, European folk music and Asian/Indian influences. Since the mid-1970s, he has recorded more than two dozen albums for ECM with drummer Jack DeJohnette, including "Timeless" and "Gateway."\nKevin Beauchamp, information services manager for Classical Film and Music, where advance tickets to the concert are available, said local interest in Abercrombie's music has picked up in recent weeks.\n"Every time you have an artist come to town, people tend to take notice, and that's reflected in our sales," he said. "Abercrombie has been around for a long time, so he's an established player who is bound to create a buzz. We've sold a lot of tickets so far; I think this is going to be a big event."\nAbercrombie's latest release, Open Land, represents another dichotomy. It is a step forward for the guitarist in that it contains his most diverse range of material, but is also a return to working with two longtime collaborators and friends, tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. They are joined by violinist Mark Feldman, organist Dan Wall and drummer Adam Nussbaum.\n"Joe has such a warm, wet sound on the tenor," Abercrombie said. "I knew it could blend really well with the organ."\nWhile all of the songs on Open Land are original compositions, "Just In Tune" is an older piece not written specifically for the album. "It's one I've had for a while," the guitarist said. "It sounds perhaps more like a standard than the other tunes -- a pretty song."\nThe rest of the material ranges from a delicate ballad named after one of Abercrombie's cats ("Spring Song") to the western-tinged "That's For Sure," which he tried out at a Washington gig.\n"It is what it is, which is a little oddball," he said. "There's a bar of six/four that recurs and gives it just a little twist, makes it a little off-center. The overall feel is like a country jam session."\nBloomington is one stop on the guitarist's tour in support of Open Land. His manager and booking agent, Mitch Goldfeld of MAGI Productions, said it will be a fairly short string of dates in intimate venues.\n"John will be playing mostly smaller theaters and university auditoriums, 500 to 700-seat halls that can provide more of a club-like setting," he said. "It's a 10-day tour of the Midwest and Albuquerque and will focus mainly on college towns. John will also be doing a few clinics"
(02/20/01 5:30am)
The work of Clifford Odets, one of the most esteemed and controversial playwrights in America in the 20th century, was brought to life this weekend at the John Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St., by actors from Bloomington High Schools North and South. \nThe production will continue Feb. 23-25.\nOdets produced a unique kind of drama that is emotionally complex and stunningly realistic. At no point does one feel detached from the events unfolding onstage. Of course, this has as much to do with the ability of actors to generate and sustain pathos as with the quality of Odets' writing.\nNo small task for student thespians, who are rarely entrusted with this level of depth and weighty subject matter. The group of actors onstage Friday at the Waldron seemed to relish tearing down the notion that high school is the place for splashy, feel-good Broadway warhorses but not the more serious side of theater. They proved Odets' proletariat vision was in capable hands.\n"Waiting For Lefty," written in 1935 on the heels of the worst part of the Depression, deals with the struggles of the working class in an era before the advent of organized labor. Lower-class shop employees faced strong-arm tactics from their bosses and the prospect of scraping a living out of $16 a week. \nDirected by Francesca Sobrer, the play is structured as a series of scenes from the everyday lives of these workers. They are snapshot views into lives plagued by powerlessness, indecision and depleted self-worth. Book-ending these are scenes of disenfranchised laborers sowing the seeds of discontent at a union hall, which have a unifying effect: all of this action is happening simultaneously, or close to it, giving the audience a broad overview of a social epidemic.\nIn his part as a factory boss, Adam Nahas of Bloomington High School South injected just enough humanity to keep his menacing character from becoming a cartoonish bully. Most of the actors in "Lefty" avoided the pitfall of playing Odets' "everyman" characters too broadly but retaining the intensity that draws an audience in. Life is dramatic enough; Odets drives that fact home by focusing with laser-like accuracy on the day-to-day struggles of these realistic characters that shouldn't need overacting. The message comes through loud and clear on its own.\nEqually engaging were Carl Estes, from Bloomington High School North, and Nicole Bruce, from Bloomington High School South, as a young couple trying to make ends meet on his meager salary. Their impassioned performance was believable. \nBut one improvement most of the evening's cast could make is better speech clarity. Even in a small theater like the Waldron, normal speech patterns become hard to decipher.\nThe other offering by Odets, "Awake and Sing," proved to be the better of the two plays, not necessarily in terms of performance, but by virtue of its depth and substance. A full-length work, it shows Odets to be a masterful handler of complex personal issues, and brings to mind other family dramatists, such as Tennessee Williams and Woody Allen, who produced such films as "Interiors" and "September."\nThe small ensemble did a wonderful job of behaving like a credible family. Even on opening night they seemed to have developed a rapport that made it easy for them to play off one another. Pacing rarely lagged, and bolstering the sense of reality was a brilliant bit of casting by director Catharine Rademacher. No one seemed better suited for a different part.\nBloomington High School North student Alia Radman delivered a fine, multi-dimensional performance as Bessie Berger, the oppressive matriarch of an extended Jewish family living in the Bronx. At times vicious, smotheringly protective or sympathetic, she portrayed Berger with a penetrating understanding of what makes her character tick and how her motives contribute to the emotional power of the play. \nMost of the scarce comic relief was provided by her slow-witted husband, Myron, played by Bloomington High School South student Corey Jefferson, who has been reduced to a spineless ghost but who shows one or two glimmers of insight throughout the play.\nThe plot involves Berger's young-adult children and their efforts to strike out on their own despite her oppression and their grim economic situation. Her son, Ralph, longs to be united with his love, a "disgraceful" orphan girl, from whom he is in danger of being separated. The fact that she never appears in the play (like the title character of "Lefty") gives her the elusive quality of a dream that might never be pulled into reality. Berger's daughter, Hennie, grapples with raising an illegitimate child and handling a prearranged marriage. The roles were played admirably by Bloomington High School North students Ronnie Hamrick and Rebecca Giordano. \n"Awake and Sing" is an artful example of great American theater, and the Waldron's production did the play abundant justice. From the claustrophobic one room set to small details that enhanced its subtle strength (such as a prop newspaper that declared "Love always wins"), it was apparent that Odets' intentions were followed, with beautiful and moving results.
(02/15/01 3:48am)
In what is being publicized as a "historic event," the fourth production of the John Waldron Arts Center Theater Series 2000-2001 will be a joint effort by the drama departments of Bloomington High Schools North and South. It is the first time students of both schools will perform together on the same stage.\nTwo Depression-era plays by American playwright Clifford Odets will be presented, "Waiting For Lefty" and "Awake and Sing." The performances will run 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16, 17, 23 and 24; and 2 p.m. Feb. 25.\nFrancesca Sobrer, theater director at Bloomington High School North, is producing "Waiting For Lefty" and said she is enthusiastic about the show's power to communicate to a diverse audience.\n"'Lefty' deals with the terrible conditions of labor in America before the union movement took hold," she said. "I studied the group theater movement in college, of which this is a great example, and I became fascinated by it. I loved the idea that theater can act as a social, political and humanitarian voice."\nShe said the multi-dimensional play was first performed at union halls on weekends.\n"The play met with huge success at the time it first came out because it was so immediate and relevant to what was going on during that period," she said. "People were very moved by it."\nBloomington High School South theater director Catherine Rademacher will produce "Awake and Sing." It is a family drama depicting the struggles of everyday life amid petty conditions.\n"The tone of 'Waiting For Lefty' is very different from that of 'Awake.' It speaks with a pretty forceful voice, and in fact ends with a call for action, whereas 'Awake' is much more subtle and intimate," Rademacher said. "You almost feel as if you're in the house with this family, watching their story unfold."\nThe two directors said they are not concerned that the themes of the plays, both written in 1935, might hold little relevance for today's audiences.\n"Much of the audience and, of course, the students, can't relate directly to the period these plays came out of, which is the Depression, but everyone can understand the underlying themes -- loss, human relationships," Rademacher said. "We all struggle, we all feel fear, we all know what it's like at some point to not know where the next paycheck is coming from. This is our human condition. The ideas are timeless."\n"Awake and Sing" was not the original choice as a companion piece to "Waiting For Lefty." The directors initially discussed producing "'Til the Day I Die," written by Odets at about the same time as the others, but eventually dropped it.\n"That play was very much a period piece in that it's anti-German and anti-propaganda," Sobrer said. "It contains some violence and also some racial and gay issues that would have been both backward-looking to today's culture and problematic for a school production. So we chose 'Awake' instead, which I think is a better play anyway."\nRademacher said she shares Sobrer's opinion.\n"I'm glad we stumbled upon it," she said. "It's a wonderful play, with so many layers and so much meaning to draw from it. Actually, for me this is a revisitation, since I had first seen it years ago and was really struck by it."\nThe Bloomington Area Arts Council generated the idea of a collaboration between the schools as something that might be valuable to the community. Development and Marketing Director Janice Skinner said she felt Sobrer, who had produced plays at Bloomington High School South prior to her current position, would be ideal for the project.\n"Having worked with the drama departments at both schools, Francesca can appreciate the amount of talent to be found in both groups of students," Skinner said. "This won't be just back-to-back shows by two separate schools, but a compilation of actors from both schools in both plays. It's a truly cooperative effort."\nSobrer said she has enjoyed the experience.\n"There's about an equal number of students from North and South in this production, so the teamwork aspect has been great," she said. "The students have made a lot of new friends, and it's been a much greater success than we could've anticipated"
(01/24/01 4:30am)
Sunday afternoon's concert by the Camerata Orchestra, led by guest conductor John Morris Russell, proved to be another welcome musical treat amid Bloomington's vibrant classical music scene.\nThe orchestra, founded in 1989 by current concertmaster Lenore Hatfield, offers a professional-quality performance opportunity for the Bloomington community. Its affiliation with the world-renowned School of Music virtually guarantees its place among the best "community" orchestras in the country. Sunday's performance at Bloomington High School South supported this assumption.\nRussell, who serves as the associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, proved himself able to command the 83-member ensemble with a precision and lightness of touch that well served the opening bars of Bedrich Smetana's overture to "The Bartered Bride." The popular work, which began the program, features a precariously quick fugato for strings (including the usually awkward basses) that was executed here with impressive coherence. The rousing overture was slightly marred only by overpowering brass, who were perhaps unwisely placed on risers.\nThe second and third works of the afternoon, played without pause, were Beethoven's two Romances in G major and F major for violin and orchestra. The solo spotlight was occupied by IU faculty member Yuval Yaron, who seemed intimately familiar with the music. The Israeli-born violinist tossed off phrase after phrase of gorgeous melody with a nonchalance that might at times have seemed a bit detached, but always with a radiant, singing tone and flawless intonation. The orchestra, under Russell's attentive conducting, served as a sensitive accompanist, keeping pace with Yaron's expressive shaping of the solo line.\nThe next piece, also featuring Yaron, was the enormously popular "Carmen" Fantasy of Spanish violinist/composer Pablo Saraste, who based his work on themes from Georges Bizet's gypsy opera "Carmen."\nMost of Saraste's music features the violin and, like the Fantasy, provide ample room for the soloist to display bravura technique. This Yaron accomplished, despite struggling with a few skittering passages in the violin's treacherous uppermost register, and infused the spirited gypsy music with a dashing vitality the audience responded to loudly. He was called back to the stage three times amid cheering applause.\nTo close the concert, the orchestra presented Ottorino Respighi's massive symphonic tone poem "The Pines of Rome," meant to musically depict four scenes of nature in and around the Italian city. The first movement, "The Pines of the Villa Borghese," presented children playing in the villa's groves and burst with bright, joyous sounds from woodwinds, harp, celeste and glockenspiel. Momentum was kept unflagging by Russell, who was animated and drew quick responses from the musicians.\nThe festive mood gave way to "The Pines Near a Catacomb" of the second movement, painted with broad, somber strokes in the orchestra and featuring an otherworldly offstage trumpet solo by principal Amy Schendel, a graduate student.\nThe third movement, the celestial nocturne of "The Pines of the Gianicolo," was delicately handled by the Camerata and included lovely solos by clarinetist and graduate student Min-Ho Yeh, English horn player Anna Mattix, also a graduate student, and cellist Carlos Izcaray. A radical innovation for its time (1924), a recording of a twittering nightingale played at the end of the movement, added a flavorful touch.\nThe final scene, "The Pines of the Appian Way," depicts with ever-intensifying strokes of timpani and bass drum the marching footsteps of the Roman army from centuries past. Antiphonal brass placed at the back of the auditorium added an extra sonic dimension to the thundering end, which made a bold statement but was kept within the bounds of good taste by Russell's keen sense of balance.
(11/01/00 5:21am)
It wasn't long ago that college students who shelled out hard cash to go to school could at least look forward to cheap campus concerts that wouldn't make them choose between seeing their favorite band and buying groceries for the week. \nLegend has it these concerts would have set a student back no more than $10 or $15.\nBut it seems those days are fast receding into memory, at least for some colleges and universities. \n"I would've gone to see Wyclef Jean when he came here, but it was just too expensive," said freshman Bryson Kern. Student tickets for the Oct. 15 show cost $26.50.\nAnd because of ever-inflating industry costs, IU is one of those schools that has been forced to choose between quality and affordability when it comes to entertaining its students.\nBut senior Jeff Zuckerman, Union Board concerts director, said it's not that simple.\nWhile some schools charge less for tickets to popular shows, Zuckerman said a number of factors determine how Union Board sets prices.\nHe said schools start their concert season with a fixed budget to spend on guest artists that year.\nMost of Union Board's money comes from the student activity fee, which Zuckerman said doesn't end up being much. \nGraduate student Ken House, Union Board's vice president for programming, said the combined total budget for the concerts committee and Live from Bloomington is about $35,000. The Live from Bloomington project is designed to offer local musicians exposure, put on a club night and produce a compact disc displaying local music. House said the project takes up the bulk of the $35,000, with $13,000 for the concerts committee to put on music and comedy performances.\nZuckerman said this leaves Union Board with the choice of either charging higher prices or holding smaller acts at a lower cost in hopes of selling more tickets.\n"When it's all worked out, the concerts committee actually gets a very small percentage of the activity fee," Zuckerman said. "What we do with a shoestring budget as compared to other schools is amazing." He pointed out that IU's prices are still lower than those at larger public venues, like Deer Creek Amphitheater in Indianapolis.\nBut freshman Dave Gruss said he would prefer to spend money to see acts in familiar, professional venues. \n"I would consider going to Deer Creek to see Bob Dylan, but I couldn't see spending $32 at IU," he said.\nStill, Zuckerman said high performance fees generally do not prevent a school from booking an artist. \n"If an artist costs $250,000, you don't need $250,000 in the bank," Zuckerman explained. "Ticket sales will hopefully make up the difference."\nIn addition, the amount and variety of concerts offered during the year by a university help to determine costs. \n"Some schools don't attempt to put on as many shows as we do, so they can afford to let their tickets go very cheaply," Zuckerman said. He noted a school that decides to have only one or two concerts per semester can put the bulk of its budget into paying for those artists and not rely on ticket revenue.\nBut Zuckerman said IU's concerts committee has chosen a different angle. \n"We decided that it would be better to have multiple shows and offer a wider variety of music than to put on one very expensive show and keep our ticket prices really low," Zuckerman said.\nGraduate student Cassie Murphy said IU is fortunate to have such a wide variety of performances.\n"I did my undergraduate work at Northwestern University, which is in Chicago," she said. "We didn't have any concerts on campus. We just went to concerts in the city. And we didn't get student discounts."\nAccording to various programming board Web sites, other colleges and universities who use the same approach have a similarly wide range of concert choices for students, with similar resulting ticket prices. Tickets for a Randy Travis concert at Purdue University this year cost $30, and the University of Michigan is charging its students a dollar more than IU's $31.50 for Bob Dylan when he stops there on his current tour, according to their Web sites.\nZuckerman said working with professional promotion agencies, like Sunshine/SFX Promotions, which works with Union Board to attract, promote and finance big-name acts like Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Ray Charles, raises prices. \n"They're in the business of promoting concerts, and need to make a profit," Zuckerman said. "Whether we do make a profit or take a loss on a concert, UB splits those gains or losses with them."\nSunshine/SFX Promotions representative Annie O'Toole declined to comment.
(10/03/00 10:36pm)
During the past 13 years, the Liberal Arts and Management Program at IU has supplied bright, interested students with the chance to add a creative spin to a traditional business education. At a time when many corporations profess to having become more humanized and seek employees with a wide range of skills and experience, the kind of comprehensive training provided by LAMP promises to be a vital tool for graduates entering the 21st century job market.\nLAMP is an interdisciplinary certificate program offered through the College of Arts and Sciences and the Kelley School of Business. Students who join the program are typically interested in pursuing careers in business, law, medicine or education. To become certified they fulfill course requirements in addition to those for their declared major.\nThe coursework includes 34 to 35 credit hours in accounting, computer science, business law, economics, management and mathematics. Though this might seem like a heavy load, LAMP's Assistant Director Jane Eig said these classes are meant to fit into a typical student's freshman and sophomore years.\n"The curriculum is designed not to overburden students," Eig said. "Some of these courses overlap with those a student would have to take for his or her major, and some can be taken as electives. Of course, it takes more class time than the normal BA or BS degree, and students usually have to do some juggling with their schedules, but it's intended that the program be done in the usual four years of study."\nStudents are generally accepted to the program between February and April of their freshman year, but some apply as sophomores or transfer students between Sept. 1 and Oct. 1 of their second year. While they don't have to be COAS students at the time they are accepted, to continue in LAMP, students must declare a major in a COAS department during their sophomore year.\nEig said the program is geared for ambitious applicants, who are admitted on the basis of a minimum 3.0 grade point average and demonstrated academic promise, leadership potential and extracurricular interests. But she also said being accepted is not as daunting as many think.\n"It's been a misconception that LAMP is a very small program, and so it's very difficult to get into," she said. "But we've made it our mission over the past two years to increase the size of the program, and last year we admitted between 80 and 100 new students. We're also increasing the number of opportunities students have to complete the coursework, so that instead of certain courses being offered only once a year, they're now offered two or three times a year. All facets of the program are being expanded."\nBesides the basic coursework, students further prepare for careers through a number of job-oriented seminars and extracurricular activities. Workshops are regularly available on important issues like choosing a career, writing effective resumes and interviewing. Students are also encouraged to seek experience abroad.\n"We very strongly encourage them to study overseas, and we have several scholarships available for that purpose," Eig said. "We also have recruiters come in fairly often to speak to the students about specific career issues. There are a lot of internship opportunities to be had by this kind of interaction, and we do give credit for internships. The student would have to do some academic work related to their internship when they come back, but it's one of the best real-world experiences they can have and fulfill credit requirements at the same time." \nMore than half of LAMP's graduates have spent all or part of their junior year studying abroad. Bloomington Chancellor Kenneth Gros Louis said he believes this is only one advantage the program equips its students with to help them compete for top jobs.\n"Typically, employers have been quite taken by the fact that LAMP graduates have excellent business skills, but also the liberal arts background that allows them to communicate effectively and offer creative solutions to corporate problems," he said. \nGros Louis also praised the links the program forges between employers and potential employees.\n"LAMP has in the past received funding from several corporations, so these companies have a sort of vested interest in our students," Gros Louis said. "This is where strong career connections are made and students can seek a variety of opportunities, including internships."\nThough much attention is paid to making sure their graduates have solid training with technical tools such as computing and accounting skills, Eig maintains that the spirit of the program is focused on the long view.\n"One of the main purposes of the program is to prepare students for their job search. It gives them a chance to see which options are available as far as a career path is concerned, and to think about what the next step should be in terms of personal development and the decisions that will shape their professional lives," she said. \n"Graduates of LAMP who don't immediately go into the workforce in business, education, law or medicine go on to higher education."\nThe program has spawned many success stories, and alumni are quick to give credit to LAMP.\n"Having a liberal arts background helps me understand the psychology and sociology of how people adjust to change, and how people learn," says Kristie Provost, who graduated in 1997 with a degree in Spanish. "These are things you don't get out of a business degree"
(09/11/00 5:39am)
Where can you bowl, play billiards, enjoy stand-up comedy and make your own music videos all in one place? The Union Board's weekly "Live It Up Late Night" is the only event on campus that fits the bill. \nNow in its second semester, this low-cost alternative to the weekend bar scene offers students the chance to unwind with a variety of activities in an alcohol-free environment. All IU students are welcome to attend Late Nights, most of which are free and run every Friday and Saturday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Indiana Memorial Union.\nLate Night also features a free breakfast buffet, live music and weekly Union Board films, which this semester will include "Mission:Impossible 2," "Erin Brockovich" and "Gladiator." Admission to the films is $2 with a valid student ID.\nWhile this event has drawn an attendance of nearly 1,000 each week, UB Public Relations Director Vaughn Allen, a junior, hopes to increase these numbers with a new promotion strategy. This semester is the first that UB will be solely responsible for getting the word out about Late Night.\n"Union Board is assuming all responsibility for marketing and promotion of Late Night," Allen said. While the IMU handled advertising of the event during its first semester, UB is now able to assign a special committee to the task of letting students know what Late Night has to offer. \n"We want to give everyone the chance to have fun at something other than a bar or house party," Allen said. "We want people to know that this is an option."\nUB is able to fund its many programs, including Late Night, with support from the president's office, the chancellor's office and the Parents' Fund. Although student activity fees are not used to fund Late Night, they do go toward UB's other programs, such as Canvas, the IU literary magazine and "Destinations," a student travel organization.\nJunior Maureen McNally, who heads the Union Board's Late Night committee, said she is excited about the influx of new ideas offered by her group and by Late Night participants since the event took off last spring. Her committee considers input collected through student comment cards and decides which activities to offer each week. She is also looking forward to making improvements. "With a larger committee this semester, that diversity of people and opinions is sure to bring lots of different ideas," she said. "We've also had the chance to do this once already, so we know what's been successful and what hasn't been so successful. People need to come out and give Late Night a chance. It's easy to say 'I've got other things to do,' but we just ask that you come and see for yourself."\nSo far, student reaction to Late Night has been positive. Many participants see it as a welcome change from the typical college town weekend fare.\nMatt Bogus, a freshman, said he appreciated the chance to enjoy diversions that couldn't be found elsewhere in town, like the horizontal bungee run. \n"This has helped me to make friends that I wouldn't meet otherwise, " he said. "Everyone I've talked to is having a great time."\nWith attractions slated for upcoming weeks to include live music, DJ dance parties and karaoke, Late Night appears to be a continuing draw for students looking for a different way to spend their weekends. \nAs junior Danielle Daley put it, "People here are sober and still having a good time"